It is well known to roll a metal workpiece into strip by passing it through an arrangement of a plurality of rolling mill stands arranged in tandem. Various schemes have been proposed for operating such an arrangement in order to produce strip of the required gauge at the exit of the last stand. Most of these schemes have utilised speed control on the rolls of one or more of the stands, but this is a disadvantage because, not only is the speed control equipment necessarily expensive to provide, but the drives have a relatively low speed response.